Surgery

Well people, the 12 week surgery rotation is almost, ALMOST, over.  Almost as in Josh is taking his oral exam today and will take his shelf exam next week, but the countdown has officially begun. 

While we've never been exactly thrilled that Josh got lucky enough to have Surgery back to back with his Internal Medicine rotation, it is pretty relieving to know that the two hardest and longest 3rd year rotations are just about done.  I hope we are not silly in thinking we can breath a sigh of relief and welcome some easier rotations from here through the end of 3rd year in early August.

Why has surgery been tough? 

Well, let me just preface this post by saying that Josh has really enjoyed surgery as a whole.  He is pretty much convinced that he will be entering the match to do some kind of surgery.  General, Orthopedics, and Trauma surgery, all round out the top 3 choices at this point.  So, it does give us some peace of mind to know what direction he THINKS he will be heading into come residency application time (which is only a mere 7 months away). Eeek!

With that in mind though, we are both glad to have a break from the grueling surgical schedule.  The past six weeks, Josh has gotten up EVERY day at 3:30am.  He gets to the hospital by about 4:15am where he rounds/writes notes on patients until it's time for everyone elses day to begin. There are days in the clinic and many a day in surgery.  He's seen and assisted in all kinds of surgeries, sutured,  given injections, splinted patient's apendages, uh...removed patient's apendages (yuck), and many more things that I probably don't care to know/wouldn't understand anyway.

Most days, he arrives home between 5:00 and 6:00pm, which doesn't sound half bad until you consider he started the day with a 4 on the clock and so that makes for a 14ish hour day.  The evening consists of scarfing some dinner, studying up for the next days surgeries, a quick shower, and getting in bed by 8pm.

You do catch a bit of a break, unlike Internal Medicine, surgery doesn't have many call days.  I think in the past 6 weeks, Josh has only had four call nights. Thank. The. Lord.

Pediatrics is up next followed by OBGYN.  It'll be good practice for him. :) Bring on the babies!